Additional Dragon shaman feats

[humble minion]

Just looking for a little feedback on a couple of homebrew feats:

Improved Draconic Aura
Prerequisites: Draconic Adaptation class feature, speak Draconic
Benefit: You improve the bonus granted by your draconic aura by +1

This one's fairly simple - a direct port of Song of the Heart from Eberron, modified for the DS. Both can be qualified for at level 3. Is this too early for this feat, since the bard has the additional balancing factor of limited bardic music uses when at low level?

Weakening Breath
Prerequisites: Gold Totem dragon, others?
Benefit: You can use your breath weapon to drain your foes strength, just like a gold dragon. Instead of breathing fire, you can choose to breathe a cone of weakening gas that inflicts one point of Strength damage per four class levels unless a Fortitude save is passed.

I really want to make this concept work somehow, because I'm running Savage Tide, and once we get past a certain point the dragon shaman's fire breath weapon is going to be utterly useless against 90% of enemies the party will be facing. But I'm really uncertain of the balance here. The 1/4 levels is roughly consistent with the amount of Str a gold dragon of equivalent HD and fire-cone-potency will do, but it seems rather weak. If I match the Str damage to a dragon of equivalent CR instead, then we can approximate it by saying the Str damage is 1 point per 1d6 of fire. Bear in mind it's damage rather than a penalty, so multiple breath weapons stack, but on the other hand at higher level (when I'm assuming this feat would become available) not many combats will last long enough to get more than one off anyway. Thoughts? What prerequisites should I require? What level should be the earliest this feat is accessible? Should I include other balancing factors, like a limit on uses/day or a greater time delay between breath weapons?

 

[Obergnom]

the first feat seems to be a "must have" feat, to me. Something I do not like. I do not think it is a good thing when you, as a player, seem forced to take a certain feat because all it does is improving your class' base ability in a huge way.

There allready is one feat like that for the DS, double draconic aura in Dragon Magic. (Level 12, lets you project two auras at once)

Concerning the Breath Weapon Feat, I would not take it. It seems weak. Fortitude saves are not very hard for most monsters, and inflicting 3 points of strenght damage at level 12 does not seem to be worth a characters time. (Maybe combined with the quicken breath feat, it is a bit better)

In Races of the Dragon there are Breath Channeling Feats. These require you to be dragonblooded, I read somewhere that dragon shamans quallify as dragonblooded, but I am not sure where. Does not matter, I ruled it for the DS player in my group like that. Look at the feat entangling breath, it is very usefull at all levels, as long as you are able to damage your enemy at all. (ie. as long as the are not immune to fire)

There are a lot of very usefull Metabreath Feats in the Draconomicon, too. I do not have those books, but I think comparing to those might help.

 

[humble minion]

It was the must-have aspect of the first that had me worried as well. Would it be more balanced if I split it into two? Maybe a chain comprising Aura Boost (+1 bonus to one of your known auras), and then Improved Draconic Aura (as in the above post, with Aura Boost as a prerequisite, but the bonuses from the two feats not stacking)?

Concerning Weakening Breath, how about if I changed it to 1 point of strength damage per d6 of fire damage that would have been otherwise inflicted? I don't want to go any further because it's already getting close to being a one-shot wizard killer at higher levels - save DC ~ 25 at 20th level, assuming only moderate Con boosting and no Ability Focus. The PC Dragon Shaman in the group is a dwarf with starting Con of 18, so seeing the breath weapon hit DC 30 wouldn't surprise me further down the track. I'm leaning towards going with this option, with a 3/day limitation on the weakening on top of the usual 1d4 round recharge time just to be on the safe side. It could end some fights very quickly if the DS rolls well for his recharge time and puts in two breaths in rapid succession though. Hmmm.

 

[Obergnom]

hmm,

to be honest, I simply would not offer a feat that enhances the draconic aura. The first one was a must have and I see the chain as being balanced. But, I think what will happen is, your player will take the whole chain, because he thinks it is neccessary to make his class as powerfull as the rest.
(Which seems to be the reason why Double Draconic Aura was introduced, so far, I have no experience with a DS at level 12 or more, but it seems likely that otherwise the aura would not be very prominent)
My advice: forget about this feat, or make it available after double draconic aura is available and you have seen it in play, and you still think the DS is underpowered. At lower levels, he is just fine.

A cool aura changing feat, that your player would probably take only after he experienced during game play how useful it is, would be a feat that doubles the aura range. (Changing it from 30ft to 60ft radius, like the marshals aura)

IMO with Metabreath, Breath Channeling and the usual combat feat chains, a DS has more than double spend all of his 7 available feats.

The Strenght drain feat. I would say, make it a recharge time +3 or +4 Metabreath feat. Thus, at higher levels, the DS is not able to breath twice per encounter. (And it makes the feat less of a no-brainer. Something I think is good)... oh, and don't make it work with clinging breath...)

You could also convert either the energy substitution or the searing spell meta magic feats into meta breath feats. Something like this:

Searing Breath

Prereq: Breath Weapon dealing at least 4 dice of fire damage
Effect: Your breath weapon is so hot that it ignores resistance to fire and deals half damage to creatures immune to fire. Creatures vularable to fire take double damage.
When you use this feat, add +1(+2?) to the number of rounds you must wait before using your breath weapon again.

Breath Weapon Substitution

Prereq: Breath Weapon dealing acid, cold, electricity or fire damage.
Effect: You may change the energy damage of your breath weapon into acid, cold, electricity or fire damage. When you use this feat, add +1(+2?) to the number of rounds you must wait before using your breath weapon again.


I think both of these feats would solve the "at high levels useless" problem of your character, and he would be able to do damage with his breath weapon. (especially in combination with other metabreath feats like maximize)

 

[eamon]

The dragon shaman does not strike me as a particularly powerful class (compare with the http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b Marshal). If you want to help him, just directly improve the class, and don't introduce must-have feats. For instance, let the dragon shaman project a second aura at aura bonus -2, and a third at -4 (always, no feat required!). This is much weaker than his primary aura, and thus unlikely to be overpowering, but gives the player more options (which is always fun), and slightly improves the character. The DS gains aura bonus +3 (at which point this becomes relevant) at 10th level, and aura bonus +5 at 20th (at which point the -4 becomes relevant).

And the metabreath feats are nice indeed! Since the breath weapon is rather weak anyhow, I'ld not worry about the feats being overpowered as written (rather, the dragon shaman has a far weaker breath than say a spellcaster such as a cleric with flamestrike not to speak of an arcane caster).

Alternately, I'm pretty sure you can improve the breath weapon to deal as many damage dice as DS base attack bonus without disrupting balance. It's all about how much you want to help the dragon shaman.

Make sure you're not perceived as biased by helping only a specific player like this, however. If the players are liable to be jealous, pimp the aura (that helps his allies after all, they can hardly complain about that :-D), and if his allies complain about his uselessness, pimp the breath weapon.

I'ld avoid creating situations limiting player choice though (such as must-have feats). Those are just boring. My principle is to let the players have as many complex, useful, but not highly powerful abilities as they can deal with, and let the NPC's have the powerful but simple stuff of which I'm not entirely sure it's balanced. Keeps it simple for me as DM ;-). And even if a player has a HUGE amount of options, since they're limited to one (or few) actions a round, game balance is maintained as long as those options aren't very strong.

These are just my random brainstorming ideas though, I don't know your specific situation of course...

 

[eamon]

Oh yeah, and be careful with the strength draining feat, it can be extremely nasty vs. NPC's such as clerics or other dragon shamans... Anybody without high strength score but with heavy armor is liable to collapse under his load with even a little bit of strength damage, and you're talking area effect here. If you want to kill your DS or cleric, let a low-level kobold sorc with arcanist gloves (500gp? for +2 caster level 2/day on a first level spell) and an empowered spellshard of ray of enfeeblement (1000gp, 3/day) hit your cleric or dragon shaman. At fourth level that's (1d6+3)*1.5, or on average almost 10 strength penalty for a little CR4 critter, no save... Strength penalties can be nasty!

 

[evilbob]

For the strength-draining one, I'd suggest a reflex save for half and making it a penalty (that does not stack with itself) of 1 point per d6 of damage the breath would have otherwise done. That makes it more useful against more creatures, and it doesn't get insanely powerful (anything that stacks with itself and can be used nigh-infinitely is asking for trouble). On the other hand, overall it's a very good tool but not a "must-have." You may want to also give it a level prereq of 6+ or so.